I noticed recently that a large marble plaque of the ten commandments (Xtian version, of course) has been posted on the main street in my little town. I’m sure that it is on private property but is so situated as to make it appear that it is town-sponsored. Had it just been the decalogue, I would have shrugged my shoulders and gone about my business. BUT underneath this was another marble plaque that proclaims: OUR AMERICAN HERITAGE. Ahem. I don’t THINK so. Your CHRISTIAN heritage, yes. Your JEWISH heritage, maybe, (with a different version). But NOT American heritage. I believe that the many indigenous inhabitants of this land would beg to differ, as would those who helped build this nation and did not subscribe to Christian beliefs.
I was on transit when I first saw this. A friend of mine happened to be with me, a retired coal miner. He remarked that HE was Christian, had been all his life, but that he found this offensive. He said, “How do you think people who come to Abingdon who are NOT Christian or not THAT type of Christian are going to feel when they see that? Not welcome or wanted, that’s how! And MY Christian faith wouldn’t think that’s a Christian thing to do!” As a non-Christian, had I seen that coming into a town, I would have felt immediately on guard. It seems a statement of identity: this is what this place is and who fits in here. It is not welcoming, not hospitable, and not even factual. It is divisive, confrontative, and exclusive. Those who put it up might have had good intentions. But in today’s charged environment, I have to speculate that they realized what they were doing and did it intentionally. I want to believe that people listen to their better angels, as Abraham Lincoln puts it so eloquently. But I find that so often, when a test comes, when the moment of truth arrives and given the chance to do something that will make that difference, they falter and give heed instead to darker voices born from ignorance and fear instead.
So many Christians, I know you are not this. But this IS HAPPENING HERE. I can critique this, but I can only do it from the outside. For this to stop, CHRISTIANS are going to have toaddress this. As long as this is considered acceptable behavior, it will continue. History will be re-written. Christianity will continue to morph into forms more authoritarian, shallower, and crueler than anything Jesus might have imagined. And those of us looking on from the outside can only watch and mourn and wonder how far this will go.
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